Hall Of Fame Member Of The Week “Don Williams” [VIDEO]

Known as country music's "Gentle Giant" for his warm baritone and laid-back ways, Don Williams was a major country hitmaker and international ambassador. Scoring at least one major hit every year between 1974 and 1991, he had an impressive fifty-six chart records. Fifty of these reached the country Top Twenty, and forty-five made the Top Ten; seventeen went to #1.

In 1978 he was CMA Male Vocalist of the Year, and his recording of "Tulsa Time" was ACM Single of the Year. In 1980, readers of London's Country Music People magazine named him Artist of the Decade.

Born May 27, 1939, in Floydada, Texas, Williams learned guitar from his mother and performed in various country, folk, and rock & roll bands as a teenager. He first found success in the 1960s as a member of folk-pop trio the Pozo-Seco Singers. The group had six pop chart-making records during 1966-67, the best known being the hauntingly nostalgic "Time." The act broke up in 1969, and Williams tried several nonmusical jobs before traveling to Nashville to make another stab at music.

There Williams found an ally in Jack Clement, who signed the lanky Texan to his Jack Music publishing company as a writer. Working with Clement and songwriter-producer Allen Reynolds, then new to Nashville, Williams recorded publisher's demo recordings. When other artists proved reluctant to record his songs, the three men decided that Williams should record them himself.

Don Williams, Volume One, his first album, appeared in 1972 on Clement's JMI Records. It contained several chart singles, including Williams's self-penned "The Shelter of Your Eyes (#14, 1972) and Bob McDill's "Come Early Morning" (#12, 1973) and "Amanda" (#33, 1973). Don Williams, Volume Two included Williams's own "Atta Way to Go" (#13, 1973-74) and Reynolds's "We Should Be Together" (1974), the singer's first Top Five hit. Recordings like these established his style, noted for its mellow yet masculine vocals and often-pensive song material.

via Full List of Inductees » Country Music Hall of Fame.